I dissagree because one of these can easily get lost and cost the school more money by replacing it. they get broken more easily than books and can get left at home just as much as a book does.

is that what laptops are for? tons of schools are making their students use laptops now.

Even when students have laptops, the schools insist on expensive 'serious' dictionary-sized textbooks. My teen daughters carry 20 lb backpacks.

Eventually, the price of a Kindle type device will likely be less than the price of a book. That would definitely make this a workable idea. Electronics drop in price so fast that I wouldn't be surprised if it happened in only 5 to 10 years.

As to massive text books, schools tend to buy needlessly large textbooks because they look impressive. "Wow, look at all the info our students will learn!" The truth is, teachers have a limited amount of time each year to teach their subjects, so most of the info in these giant textbooks gets glossed over or skipped entirely. The schools would be well advised to study the way the classes are actually taught and select appropriately sized books for the classes.

Great idea. Text books are a scam, the prices are incredible. Each semester for a college student can cost more than a kindle.

There are some situations where they would not work, and we might need a more rugged version, but that is no reason to criticize the idea.

To establish a nationwide (or larger) core set of texts would have benefits & drawbacks, but sharing a common set of reference points would help in business & even in social conversations.

I'd like to see how much is spent annually on textbooks in the USA. I bet this approach could save money. Remember, the costs would go down if the quantities were increased by 10,000 times.